Hi,

Our server went down on Monday, and when it came back up we noticed that the server would time out before executing functions. I can still manage comments and spam, I just have to let the server time out. Publishing entries however, is proving to be a real bear.

My editor published an article after the server came back online. The dashboard says the entry is published. The entry won't show up in the blog. Our server host is Mediatemple, and while they're working on it, they're getting stumped on by the publishing failure.

Anyone out there who can help? We haven't been able to publish since Monday and we're starting to freak out.

-grant
-------
Grant Ray
Creative Director
Hell For Leather
Unit 7SW
338 Berry Street
Brooklyn, NY
11211
c: +1 412 638 0144
e: grant@hellforleathermagazine.com
hellforleathermagazine.com

As far as what you've mentioned, it sounds roughly like the software mysteriously broke itself, which obviously isn't too likely, so let's see what else you've checked. I'm curious about your server going down; what type of account do you have? The grid(gs) system generally doesn't, that being the whole point, and if you have a dv server then MediaTemple probably wouldn't be working on it for you. Did anything at all change about the situation, like being moved to a different server/hardware/etc?

Are you actually getting a server timeout, or an internal server error?

What happens if you manually rebuild only the home page? I'm assuming that this is that new item your editor published, so the system is at least partially working. Is there a chance the permissions on the home page file got messed up, not allowing MT to modify it? What happens if you change the output file of that template to something new, like index_test.html just to see if it comes out properly?

Anything in either the MT activity log or your server logs?

Yeah, that's the post. (curious how you found that, btw) I've narrowed the problem to not being able to publish index templates, if that means anything at all. As for MediaTemple we're on the gs, adn we get server errors that tend to change every time a MediaTemple tech monkeys around. The latest says there is an internal error or misconfiguration encountered by the server.

The error log's most favorite thing to say at the moment is-
Wed Jul 16 10:21:03 2008] [error] [client 74.73.110.236] Premature end of script headers: mt.cgi, referer: http://hellforleathermagazine.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi
[Wed Jul 16 10:21:43 2008] [error] [client 200.76.201.70] File does not exist: /home/26755/domains/hellforleathermagazine.com/html/favicon.ico
[Wed Jul 16 10:21:44 2008] [error] [client 202.156.14.74] File does not exist: /home/26755/domains/hellforleathermagazine.com/html/favicon.ico, referer: http://hellforleathermagazine.com/images/indyjonesjr.jpg
[Wed Jul 16 10:22:10 2008] [error] [client 82.212.180.197] File does not exist: /home/26755/domains/hellforleathermagazine.com/html/favicon.ico
[Wed Jul 16 10:22:11 2008] [error] [client 72.91.149.133] File does not exist: /home/26755/domains/hellforleathermagazine.com/html/favicon.ico
[Wed Jul 16 10:22:45 2008] [error] [client 83.148.233.34] File does not exist: /home/26755/domains/hellforleathermagazine.com/html/favicon.ico
[Wed Jul 16 10:24:15 2008] [error] [client 61.129.35.139] Premature end of script headers: mt-comments.cgi, referer: http://hellforleathermagazine.com/2007/10/...dicis-left.html
[Wed Jul 16 10:24:32 2008] [error] [client 76.184.83.41] Premature end of script headers: mt-comments.cgi, referer: http://hellforleathermagazine.com/2007/10/...dicis-left.html
[Wed Jul 16 10:25:42 2008] [error] [client 66.249.71.215] File does not exist: /home/26755/domains/hellforleathermagazine.com/html/robots.txt
[Wed Jul 16 10:27:26 2008] [error] [client 85.120.113.103] File does not exist: /home/26755/domains/hellforleathermagazine.com/html/favicon.ico

Now, i know it's looking in the wrong place for the favicon, which should be images/favicon.ico, not html/favicon.ico. Yet the header template points to the right spot, so why I'm getting the error is beyond me.

To be perfectly frank, all of this is beyond me as I'm a Creative Director, not a developer. I've been forced into the role due to the fact that anyone who is competent is too busy to take on a small client or has minimum rates that only large corporations or the independently wealthy can afford. Indeed, finding a professional that knows Movable Type4 and is willing to handle our tiny site and it's needs has been frustratingly impossible.

-grant